Tag: income tax survey bbc

After Three Days, Income Tax ‘Surveys’ at BBC Offices End Late on Thursday Evening

Since the surveys started, various journalists’ bodies and independent observers – globally and within the country – have expressed deep concern with the move and its timing.

New Delhi: After three days, ‘surveys’ by officials of the Income Tax department at the New Delhi and Mumbai offices of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ended late on Thursday evening, around 10 pm.

The ‘surveys’ began on Tuesday, February 14, at around 11:20 am.

Confirming that tax authorities left its offices, BBC in a tweet said, “We will continue to cooperate with the authorities and hope matters are resolved as soon as possible.”

The tweet also said, “We are supporting staff – some of whom have long questioning or been required to stay overnight – and their welfare is our priority. Our output in India is back to normal and we remain committed to serving audiences in India and beyond.”

The move comes weeks after the BBC released a documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots titled, ‘India: The Modi Question.’

The Union government had blocked the documentary on YouTube and Twitter. The external affairs ministry had called it “propagandist agenda,” to which the BBC said the documentary “was rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards.”

On Thursday, members of the Hindutva body the Hindu Sena – which once made news for organising a birthday party for former US president Donald Trump – gathered at the BBC’s New Delhi office to stage an agitation in support of the surveys.

In the intervening period since the surveys started, various journalists’ bodies and independent observers – globally and within the country – have expressed deep concern with the move and its timing.

Unnamed UK government sources told the news agency PTI that it is “closely monitoring” the situation. The US state department too noted that it was aware of the survey and spoke on the importance of press freedom.

Unnamed Indian government sources and named representatives have also spoken to chosen publications, alleging that the survey is “follow up and not vindictive” (as reported by Reuters) and that it is being carried out to “investigate issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies” (as reported by Times of India).

Answer questions honestly and directly: ‘BBC internal memo’

Reuters has further reported that BBC World Service director Liliane Landor sent an internal memo yesterday, saying the Income Tax Department was conducting a survey of the organisation’s “tax status and affairs in India”, with which the BBC was cooperating fully.

“If you are asked to meet with the officers you should answer their questions honestly and directly. Questions about the BBC’s structure, activities, organisation, and operations in India are within the remit of the investigation and should be answered,” Landor said in the note, which was reportedly seen by Reuters.

“It goes without saying that you should not delete or conceal any information on any of your devices.”

It was initially reported, including by the news agency AFP, that some BBC employees and staffers had had their devices seized by the I-T officials during the surveys.

“It is important to note that no indiscriminate seizure of mobiles, laptops and digital gadgets can be done at will by the tax officials during a survey. Only books of accounts and documents can be impounded subject to a reasoned order,” advocate Deepak Joshi noted in an analysis for The Wire.

This copy was updated and republished at 11:30 pm on February 16, after it was first published at 11:16 am on the same day. 

Income Tax ‘Survey’ at BBC Offices Continues Late on Wednesday

There was no reaction to the ‘survey’ – which comes weeks after the BBC aired a two-part documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi – from the UK government.

New Delhi: The ‘survey’ by Indian Income Tax officials at the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai was still ongoing at 10 pm on Wednesday, February 15. Authorities said they were investigating the British broadcaster for tax evasion, diversion of profits and non-compliance with Indian law.

There was no reaction to the ‘survey’ – which comes weeks after the BBC aired a two-part documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi – from the UK government. According to The Guardian, the BBC has “previously been reluctant to seek formal political support when it comes to such incidents in an attempt to make clear it is separate from the British state”.

Tax authorities conduct a survey under Section 133A of the I-T Act, which is usually a precursor to a search and seizure operation. In a brief statement on Tuesday, BBC said that it was cooperating with the tax officials and hoped that the matter would be resolved quickly.

Also Read: Allegations of Transfer Pricing Non-Compliance Do Not Warrant an IT Survey on BBC

In the international press and media bodies, the ‘surveys’ drew condemnation. The non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists said that the action “smacks of intimidation”. Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, said, “Indian authorities have used tax investigations as a pretext to target critical news outlets before, and must cease harassing BBC employees immediately, in line with the values of freedom that should be espoused in the world’s largest democracy.”

In an op-ed for Bloomberg, Bobby Ghosh, the former editor of Hindustan Times, wrote about the “attack” on press freedom since the start of the Modi era in 2014. He wrote:

“I got some glimpses of how this works in an ill-starred stint as editor of Hindustan Times, New Delhi’s leading English-language newspaper. Just two years in power, the Modi government was already demonstrating an intolerance of criticism that was familiar to me from my previous experiences as a foreign correspondent in the dictatorships of the Middle East. Stories deemed embarrassing to the government or the ruling party led routinely to minatory phone calls from ministers and bureaucrats: The threats ranged from the withholding of ads and the pursuit of punitive lawsuits to investigations into my personal finances and those of my family.

And yes, there were dire warnings about income-tax raids.” 

Ghosh, who resigned as editor of HT abruptly in September 2017, said that “things have only gotten worse” after his departure from Delhi. “Cowed into compliance with official diktat, much of India’s media merely cheers on Modi’s abuses of power,” he said.

Ghosh drew parallels between India under Modi and Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying the governments have used the “same combination of economic pressure and intimidation to achieve near-total domination of the media landscape”. The governments also use “tax raids and frivolous lawsuits for harassment”, he added.

He said that the indulgence of the West has “inculcated a sense of impunity” in the leaders of the two countries.

In a report, the New York Times noted that under Modi, Indian authorities “have often used such raids against independent media organisations, human rights groups and think tanks in what activists call an effort to harass critical voices into silence by targeting their funding sources”. The newspaper said that rights groups have “repeatedly expressed concern about the dwindling freedom of the press, with journalists and activists thrown in jail for long periods or mired in court cases that drag on in India’s labyrinthine judiciary”.

Tax ‘Survey’ on BBC: The Modi Government Is Behaving Exactly Like Indira Gandhi During the Emergency

Old BBC hand Satish Jacob, who broke the news of Indira Gandhi’s assassination along with Mark Tully and reported on Operation Bluestar amongst others, says: “I am an eternal optimist, and I still feel that the electorate of India will not allow the government to become a dictatorship. But days like this make it very hard to be optimistic.”

The so called ‘survey’ by the Income Tax department at BBC’s Delhi and Mumbai offices is nothing but an act of intimidation through the misuse of government agencies. What I find most worrying is that the Narendra Modi government no longer cares about the optics of such an action. I don’t think anyone believes the official line of this being a mere survey. Its nothing but petty politics and an attempt to muzzle an international news channel, when all the Indian channels have been browbeaten into submission. What I find particularly ironic is that many of the BJP politicians talk about the excesses of the Emergency imposed by Mrs Indira Gandhi – while behaving exactly like the government of those dark days.

The news that the Income Tax Department has sealed off the offices in Delhi and Mumbai has created a stir throughout the country. I switched on the TV and heard a comment from a member of the BJP saying, “If the BBC is innocent then why the fear?” I am not a BBC spokesperson, just an ex-employee. Setting the obvious political vendetta probably as a result of the documentary on Gujarat aside, it’s a ludicrous attack on BBC. The outlet is funded by the licence fee paid by the citizens of UK – it’s not a commercial entity per se and it’s the national broadcaster of the UK. I am surprised that the government chose to retaliate through the I-T department. Also why is the government hell bent on attracting more attention to the documentary they have tried so hard to suppress?

It’s definitely not a good look in the year when the NDA government has gone to town crowing about India’s presidency of G20. I wonder what kind of a tone it will set when Rishi Sunak and PM Modi meet the G20 Summit? With India’s reputation as one of the few successful democracies in South Asia under a serious threat, I am not sure what worries me more: that this government doesn’t care how this attack on the BBC will be perceived, or that there is no one left in electronic media in India to really express their outrage.

The Emergency was imposed less than 50 years ago, and a lot of senior members of the BJP – including the prime minister – created their political careers on the back of being persecuted by the government of the day. But those lessons of the past have no meaning for them now that the shoe is on the other foot. I am an eternal optimist, and I still feel that the electorate of India will not allow the government to become a dictatorship. But days like this make it very hard to be optimistic.

Satish Jacob was deputy chief of bureau, BBC Delhi.